


Scheherazade

by Davechicken



Series: Tales of Araby [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Depression, F/M, M/M, Psychological Torture, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-05
Updated: 2013-11-05
Packaged: 2017-12-31 15:13:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1033174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Davechicken/pseuds/Davechicken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Winchesters were smarter than they thought to keep Crowley in the dungeon alone. Down there, with nothing but his own mind for company, the cracks start to show.</p><p>I should also point out I shamelessly stole the idea for the ending from ElDiablito_SF. Oops. Forgive me it was too good not to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Scheherazade

Credit where credit is due. I've said myself countless times that people underestimate the Winchester brothers at their peril. Look at Azazel, for one. Lucifer, for another. One dead the other caged for all eternity. Hell, if we're going to spread the net further, then look at the angels. Those two boys take no prisoners of any kind. Well. Not normally. Which is why I was relieved and surprised in equal measure when I remained alive for multiple consecutive days, even cramped like the weekly grocery shopping in the boot of that horrid Impala. Oh - I knew there was a reason. Of course there was a reason. And when they dragged me out and chained me up and finally pulled the wool from my eyes and the tape from my lips I was prepared for it.

Or I said I was, to myself. Chained and bound to a chair in a trap in a room that wouldn't have looked out of place in Hell itself, if you added some more screaming, ichor, entrails and soft jazz. A wall full of torture implements that didn't actually look that bad, really, and I'd give them oh - say - seven and a half out of ten for effort? 

I shuffled in the chair and was ready for them to crack open. I know from close up that Dean learned some rather pretty tricks from Alastair. Oh, I never got involved, of course. Never crossed paths with them, but you _hear_ things, see. And Alastair made a lovely little apprentice in Winchester Junior-Senior. And after all that time trapped in a tiny little hidey-hole, cramped and bored? Some screaming was just what the Doctor ordered.

But... no. No. Even though I taunted them and insulted their prowess, the two oversized goons just... left. Just left me there. In the dark. With the acrid smell of holy water layered atop the appealing undertones of iron, salt and decay. Wherever this place was, it had not been aired in a very long time. I could almost taste the last occupant. 

They left me in here, with nothing but the inside of my own head for company. It was...

It was a stroke of genius, whether intentional or not.

In the dark, I had nothing but myself for company.

***

Let me tell you a story. Stories are how I pass the time, you see. Stories - true and not - to prevent my mind closing in on itself. Or maybe it already has, and that's why I'm narrating. Who knows, who cares, blah, blah. You are my captive audience, and you will bear witness to the words I put before you.

Once upon a time there was a young man named Fergus. It was not the best name his parents could have cursed him with, but then it wasn't the worst, either. Back then, no one dared to call him Gus and Fergie didn't have the connotations it would later. If it had, and you had called him by it... well. It's best not to contemplate that. Let's not get too caught up in timing, or we will never get to the bottom of this story.

Fergus was a good little lad, all told. No worse than anyone. No more cruel, no more kind. His mother was a witch, but back then who wasn't? It wasn't exactly a useful skill. There was no self-washing crockery or talking animals or grand adventures. If someone crossed her, their milk would go sour. You had to be careful, see, or someone would drag you from your house and burn you at the stake. Fergus learned a few things from her, and he went out into the big, bad world.

Now Fergus was given a cow. Well - I say given, but that's not quite accurate. He was given a cow and a dowry and a chest filled with boring linens and dull tableware. It was the done thing, you see. The cow was very annoying and whiny and he took her for walks and fed her flowers and wished she would choke on the thorns on the rose-stems and drop dead. No matter how many flowers he fed her, though, she wouldn't just die. Instead she made horrible, lowing sounds like cows are wont to do and she batted those eyelashes that should look attractive and perhaps would on any creature but a cow. 

He took the cow to market one day, dressed in the finest silk collar you could buy. Fergus was a tailor, which perhaps I should have mentioned before. I'm not actually a story-teller by nature, so you are going to have to get used to me doing things like that. 

No one wanted the cow. He begged and pleaded, but the slaughterman would not take the heifer from his hands. The bell around her neck tolled and he knew he was doomed to her sagging, lifeless udders forever. She was horrid. She was. She cooked but it was all the same, brown, tasteless goo. She cleaned but it was the same smoky, samey, boring house. She gave birth but to the most annoying, whiny runt who did nothing but break things and demand attention. And worst of all, the cow did not love Fergus. He had tried to be a good owner, but whatever he did was never good enough for her.

He walked away from the abattoir, fingers curled in the leash that yoked the pair together forever. He thought bad thoughts. He thought bad thoughts because he realised: this was it. This was what the rest of his life would be. Walking back and forth to market with a cow who hated him. Slaving away making clothes of fine design and fabric which he himself could never afford, for men who lived in fine manors and who walked their does around, fawning after them in their lace and silk slips. Nothing Fergus could ever do would ever matter. Nothing Fergus could ever _be_ would ever matter. 

And when he reached the cross-roads that split the path in twain: one to the house of the Lord, where he would go every Sunday and kneel before God Almighty in his Heaven and his lips would say the words as his heart did not; the other to the dark, nasty little homestead where he would fuck away his nights and eat away his mornings. When he reached that point, Fergus stopped, for a beautiful woman stood there waiting for him in clothes so bright they made his soul hurt.

"Fergus," she said, her voice like the breaking of the light over the faltering spine of a mountain-top. "I have a deal for you, if you are interested."

She opened her palm to him, and showed him what she held inside. "Three magic beans. Three magic beans, all for you. And I only ask one thing in return..."

***

I don't know how long I've been down here. It's hard to keep track of time when there's no external stimulus. Occasionally I can hear them walking around outside - can hear the creak of floorboards or the thunk of something worse - but as hunters and nerds keep irregular hours at best, that's no indicator of time. Also I am almost certain that they vanish for days on end, because sometimes the silence between the noises is unbearably long.

I upset them, you see. Poor little Crowley in his little cage, bound and tied and bundled up tight and I still managed to piss them off. It's a skill I have, you see. I had to do something for entertainment, so I called out to the Prophet of the Lord - hah, Prophet of the Pit, too - and I wound him around my finger with just my tongue and I baited him until he let his fists and toys fly.

I wasn't lying when I told them I did worse to myself on a Friday. Well - admittedly it was a lie, but the sentiment was true enough.

I knew he had the rage inside him. I'd stoked it up myself, over the course of our time together. He has such potential, does young Tran. Such simmering passion and violence. It's beautiful, really. I love to see my charges blossom under my careful attention, and Kevin did me proud.

He still lacked finesse, of course. Many of the blows he landed were sloppy and would have been better directed an inch to the left or right. He has yet to learn the anatomy of pain - to find out where you can press with just a finger and a thumb and cause exquisite agony - and it was cathartic rage and blind anger that fuelled him. Perhaps if he was less emotionally invested in the situation he would think clearer... but I hadn't wanted that. I hadn't wanted the clinical precision of a scalpel. I'd wanted the sound of his rage and fury crashing into me like a wave. I'd wanted to experience the full force of his hatred and I'd wanted to be the only thing that mattered to him, right then. The only thing that stood between him and his mother dearest. 

It had been fun. Oh, it had. The way his lips curled back from his teeth when he slunk away, the indecision on his features. He knew he'd enjoyed himself, and he knew - academically, if not emotionally - that it had been wrong. That he had transgressed. That he had slipped up. I'd wanted that, that niggling doubt in his head, more than I'd wanted the (admittedly very pleasant) pain. 

And I'd wanted what came after that even more. The way the brothers Grimm looked so... guilty... that they'd let it happen. That they'd let their precious little whelp chew on the furniture and piddle up the walls when they'd been out. That had been worth it. It had been more than worth the five names I gave them, when they realised that I was in control again. Even here - even here - I was not going to let them dictate the terms of our relationship. No, my friends, Crowley _writes_ the contracts, he does not _sign_ them, not any more.

So of course they left me alone for longer this time, as punishment for my sins. I took each day as a sign of how much I was winning, because otherwise I might have started to feel a little maudlin.

***

They say Heaven is what you make of it, that it is any-size-fits-one. I do not know, I have never been. Frankly I cannot think of anything more dull than forever having everything you want. That sounds to me instead like Hell. Without wanting, what are we? Mindless automata, battery hens, pumped full of happy chemicals and laying for our overlords. Without need, without desire, without ambition then we are nothing.

Heaven doesn't care for you. The angels do not care for you. God does not care for you.

No one does.

***

So Fergus lived out his days and died, as people usually do. It was a very sad affair because at his graveside stood the cow and more lowing, senseless herd beast, who stared at the earth and shat soil atop his grave. Blah, blah, blah. His frame was mortal and it withered as frames do. At least he died before he became incontinent and old, and lived instead a short, sharp, bright life even though he was surrounded by creatures of the dullest wit and intent.

Instead of the Reaper come to take him to eternal rest, though, it was _her_. It was the beautiful nymph, with her so-bright eyes and her so-soft voice and her so-cruel lips. 

As the cattle plodded ever onwards, a creature of power and fury advanced on Fergus. He was afraid. Here was strength the like of which he had never seen. Here was pain like he had never experienced. Jaws strong enough to split the earth closed around him and pulled him down into her embrace. Pulled him down towards the dark space between her thighs where he wanted to be - oh he wanted her so badly - and he screamed as his soul was torn from his body.

Hell, some say, is other people.

Fergus experienced pain like you have never known. On earth, there are limits. There are limits because there is a frame. There is only so much that the human mind can experience, only so much before the natural order of things kicks in and you pass out. Not so in Hell. In Hell, the only limit to your agony is your imagination. The only end to your pain is more pain. And worse, you want it.

You want it, or you would not be here. You want it, or you would be in the endlessly boring Sunday afternoon or lightly overgrown garden needing weeding, or on the sofa with your beloved and a bag of slightly stale treats, or dancing down the seafront with your squalling, icecream covered brat for eternity. You want it, you need it, you deserve it.

They taught Fergus things. They taught Fergus things about himself that he had never known. They taught him all the myriad ways in which a person can hurt and be hurt. They ripped the flesh from his frame and let it grow back - inch by painstaking inch - in order to flay it from his bones once more. They took the tailor and they made for him a brand new suit. They took it in in places, let it out in others, shaped it until it was perfect for him and he never knew how he could have worn anything else. 

And it was all for _her_. It was all, always for _her_. That image of beauty and cruelty with whom he had fallen in love. For her, he suffered on the rack. For her, he learned to do the same. For it was what she appreciated, in her men. He saw how her eyes danced with amusement when he pulled a scream from the unwilling. He saw how she nodded when he asked her permission to do more. He saw how she loved him back.

Or so he thought, anyway.

And Fergus became her bitch.

***

I decided that in order to keep myself from becoming utterly bored stiff, that I would indulge in a little fantasy. Why not? There is a limit to how many times you can try to recall the storylines of your favourite books and TV shows before you get bored. I have always been cursed with an imagination. I have always been cursed with the drive - the _thirst_ \- for more. And the boys were determined not to give me anything, which was ridiculous. 

Were they afraid that they couldn't properly torture the King of Hell? Were they anxious in case I laughed in their faces? Were they hoping that the best way to torture a masochist was to leave him hungry and wanting? Or were they simply too busy and too bored to see me?

So I came up with a little game of my own. I was not going to let them win. They thought that leaving me here would destroy me, but they could not have been more wrong.

The first thing I decided was that Dean had a perfect cocksucker's mouth. Now before you judge, remember that I am the King of Hell and if I feel like imagining people doing nefarious things to me then you better shut up.

He does have the perfect cocksucker's mouth. Have you seen it? Those lips pout just _so_. Those eyelashes are long and pretty, all the better for him to gaze up at you soulfully with those winsomely green eyes, looking for Daddy's approval, as his throat swallows around you. So I imagined he came in when no one was looking and he put a hand over my lips and opened his own. 

Anyway. Dean comes in and the expression on his face says you're not to talk to him. Not to question him. Not to say a word. 

It doesn't stop me - of course it doesn't - if I want to talk, I talk.

But he puts his hand on my mouth and although I lick over the sweat-lines across his palm, he doesn't let go. He tastes of shame and self-loathing, and he shivers in a way that means he likes my tongue rather more than he wants to admit.

Then he uses his other hand to see to my trousers. He unzips the fly and he gropes clumsily around until he can ease me out of my boxers and my eyes are wide with surprise. I lick his hand again but he won't look at me. He won't meet my eyes as he sinks to his knees and I part mine. His breath is hot and shallow and for long moments he does nothing. I begin to wonder, vaguely, if he's going to just try biting it off. Or if he's going to tease me and leave me wanting. I speak under his hand and he glares up at me.

I urge him to get bloody on with it, and for a moment our eyes lock. He stares at me, and I at him. It's a battle for dominance and it's ridiculous, because I'm chained up and he's kneeling. The whole situation is farcical and unreal and that's why it works. His eyes say that I'm not to tell a soul, and then he lowers his gaze and his lips wrap around the head of my cock. 

He's good. Of course he's good, it's my fantasy, remember? He's good and he knows all the right tricks to do with his tongue. He won't touch my balls but that's okay. I don't need him to. I just need him to make those disgustingly nice noises as he slurps me down like a pro. He's done this before. He's done this plenty of times. Does Sam know? Does he do it to Sam? Did he do it to his father? Is that why his cheeks colour with shame? I bite down on his hand and it spurs him on, spurs us both on and I can feel the need in his movements, in the way it becomes messy and less perfect. He grabs my balls at last and tugs on them, yanks them, pulls them like he means it and I scream into his hand and come into his mouth. Dean swallows all my seed and then he pulls back - still avoiding my eyes - and has to redress me so no one knows what he's done. 

If I tell them... well. He won't come back again. It's an unspoken contract of shame and need.

This is a nice fantasy, but of course I don't let it get too far. I don't mind a little sexual titillation, but if I let myself enjoy my daydreams too much then it's just more bodily fluids I'll have to wallow in. It's bad enough being caked in my own blood.

Although I do wonder what they'd say if they came in to talk to me and found a damp patch. So maybe next time.

***

Did you believe the tale of the tailor of Canisbay? Did you? More fool you. Of course it isn't true. Why would I ever let anyone find out who I truly am? Do you take me for a fool? Don't you know that it's dangerous to be known? To be understood? Safest of all is to hide yourself deep, to present a false front. No one can break you if they do not know you. No one can break you unless you _let them_.

***

A long, long time ago between the flowing of the Tigris and the Euphrates was a land rich in culture and art. This was well before a hippy upstart with sandals and a liking for telling idiotic tales with morals, long before Moses told Pharaoh 'Let my people go'...

...way before all that malarkey the angels watched with amusement as the old heroes raged and roared over the land. They watched as the chief amongst men killed Humbaba of the mountain, they laughed as the champion and his friend slaughtered the Bull of Heaven.

It can be very dull, being an angel. And even the wandering Jews with their constant persecution complex wasn't enough. Sometimes they would dick with the Akkadians, or put a foot in the Nile to stop the water flowing, and sometimes they would laugh as Zeus found yet another animal form to get his end away. Seriously? God of all your people and you have to resort to a _golden shower_ \- and not the type you'd find if you looked that up today - in order to cheat on the missus? Honestly.

Life was very different, back then. The gods were all over the place, and you couldn't take a step for tripping over some raiment or aegis. 

It was simpler, too. Before it all went wrong. It made sense in a way it later wouldn't. Yes, Lucy had gone and thrown the first, most epic of all wobblers until Jesus Christ himself ran off to be a teenager... but God was present and the world seemed to be so full of hope and promise.

Naomi wore a different face back then. In more senses than one. Time jaded her, but she insisted she was still the same old angel.

I knew better.

I knew who I was.

Naomi never did.

***

Kevin, I had decided, would make the perfect bottom. This was mostly because Dean was the cocksucker, or else I would have had difficulty assigning a role to him. He very much looked like a twink. Not my bag, really, but beggars can't be choosers and I never did have a sense of tact or decorum.

It was always angry-sex with him. He wanted to be restrained himself, and it was clear in his eyes. He wanted it to be against his will - but not really - wanted someone to hold his hair and pull him back. But he knew I was dangerous and so he couldn't risk it.

Instead he would gag and blindfold me and make sure I couldn't move an inch. He would do the things to me that he wanted done to himself.

(And really, wasn't that what this whole torture thing was all about? It wasn't idleness or lack of time. They knew full well that only I knew how to break myself, that the only person capable of doing this was me. They hoped I would get tired and tell them how to do it, or just do it myself. No. No. I would not. I would not give them the satisfaction. I would give them _no_ satisfaction whatsoever.)

He was young and it showed in the way he hurried. He'd not yet learned the trick of maturity, of drawing out pleasure until it almost hurt. He came in with his agenda and he rode my cock until it hurt him and then he cleaned up quickly and he left. Nasty, brutish little beast. If I had my time over, I would teach him that was no way to treat a partner. Even if they were nothing more than a glorified dildo for you, did he have no sense of self-worth?

Kids these days.

***

 _Where is He?_ the angel asked. _Where has He gone? Does He no longer care? Does He no longer see?_

 _Ours is not to question, brother,_ the other replied. _Ours is to serve and obey._

_How do we know we're doing the right thing?_

All children grow up, eventually. Some better than others. Some learn to move on and accept their parents' weaknesses, some remain forever crippled by the knowledge that Daddy doesn't know everything. Some fly the nest and make their own and try to be a better person. Some repeat the mistakes of the generations that came before. Some come back every weekend for their socks to be laundered. Some feed their failing parents as once they - helpless brats - were fed. 

Can you blame the angels? Can you? Lucifer had a point, you know. Humans got everything. They were 'made in His image' and they had free will and they had love and cable and natural disasters.

What did angels have? They were created for a purpose. They were made to fit a mould. Archangel, seraph, cherubim. Each according to their station, none according to their need. 

You were created and you were given a job and that was it. You did the job. You did not ask questions, for He never answered. Not the rank and file, at least. You did as you were told. And why? Because. That's why. What for? Because. That's what for. 

There was no progression. There were no answers. There was no end, other than _the End_ , the fabled Apocalypse wherein the world would grind to a halt and it would then be stasis, forever. Angels in Heaven, Demons in Hell, Humans wherever their coin landed and that was it.

Boring.

Honestly? Boring. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine that you got what you deserved and that was it? And why? Why any of it? Why create a world with flaws, if you didn't want those bloody flaws? Why create the possibility of sin and evil if you didn't, deep down, want it?

It's all ridiculous, anyway. 

Any being sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from God.

***

I admit, now, that this one is selfish. The other two are at least partially drawn from reality, from understanding the motives and methods of the men in question. But for Sam? Oh. This one is all for me.

Have you seen him? He's a goddamn giant. Do you think I'm going to pass up the opportunity to imagine using that body as it should be used? Hah. As if. You take one look at him - at his shoe size - and you don't imagine that he's hung like a stallion and there's something seriously wrong with you.

As this one is pure wish fulfilment, it goes a little differently. Because even I can't go straight from nought to sixty and require more lead-in than 'and then he came to deliver pizza/fix my washing machine/whatever', to begin with there's a very boring moral monologue where he tells me about how he remembers all those stupid things he claims I said. Blah. Blah. Blah. He wants to save me, wants to fix me, soothe my soul, show me love... whatever. He says all these things and then when he's said enough, he deigns to touch me.

I'm still tied up, of course. But he's moved me so I'm kneeling on the floor with my hands around the throne. (Wherever the King sits is a throne, by choice or not.) His hands are gentle and I spit at him to make it hurt, but he won't. He strokes along my spine and pets me like a cat. Eventually I give in and I arch under the touch, because it's happening and I might as well bloody enjoy it. He's careful and kind and I hate him for it. I hate him because I want no kindness, and I need no care. I need it to hurt. I need it to hurt because... that's just how I roll, sweetheart. 

It's a torture in and of itself as he eases me open. I remember a hundred other times in the pit. I remember it hurting the first time - the first ever time - and I remember being happy that it did because I deserved it. 

I took the pain out of hell because of people like me. I took the torment away because it made you stronger. It made _me_ stronger. Punkass crossroad demon come King of Hell. If that wasn't the poster-child of 'Better Living Through Pain' then I didn't know what was. It strengthened you. It broke you and made you new.

He was too goddamn nice, cooing encouragement and not giving me more until I whimpered and pushed back on his fingers. More. Fuck, more. I wanted his giant cock in me and I wanted it _now_. He kissed my shoulder - stupid, sentimental idiot - and I felt the... felt the _something_ bright that waxed and waned around him... I'd thought when I first saw him that it was the remnants of the Trials making his oh-so-noble soul glow, but I wasn't so sure any more.

Next time he came in, I was going to have to look closer. It tugged at the sides of my mind, and I needed more to know for sure.

Whilst I was lost in these thoughts he breached me. It was good. It didn't hurt like I wanted it to, but even self-denial is a pain you know? He slid in and he made a moosey moan of pleasure (the others didn't. Dean grunted when he sucked me, and Kevin growled when he rode me) and he started to push oh-so-slowly into me. Where Kevin was hot-headed and impatient, Sam was his exact polar opposite. Where Kevin screamed abuse at me and hurt me, Sam tried to heal with his hands and his words.

Sam's girth and length really weren't enough to make up for all the crap that came with him fucking me, so I decided I didn't like this fantasy after all and I consigned it to the graveyard.

***

She reminded me of Naomi, you know. Lilith. Both driven. Both beautiful. Both ruthless. There is a fine line between Heaven and Hell, and I'd seen countless people do the tango between the two. I'd seen angels fall or rip their wings from their shoulders to get away from it all. I'd seen Lucifer on his warpath and I'd seen Michael on his. You would never convince me there was any difference between them, as there was no difference between the women in my life.

Apart from the cow.

***

Long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away...

...on a Thursday evening, by the reckoning of the local calendar and clock...

An angel and a demon made a plan.

It started well enough. The angel was wary - who wouldn't be? - about a deal with the Devil. Even the Devil you know. But everyone can be tempted by something. Everyone has a breaking point. Everyone has a pressure point.

You just have to find it and lean on it. You just have to make the offer that can't be refused. 

You know what they say about Good Intentions?

Well, everyone has one. Even the so-called Righteous will say yes if they think it serves some greater good. It's their vanity, you see. Their ego. They don't have to be doing it because they know it to be wrong, and the cunning Mephistopheles will curry their favour no matter what.

The plan was a good one. A car-pool. Two beings driving in the same direction, sharing gas money and souls. It was perfect.

It was a deal I didn't realise I was making with _myself_ until it was too late.

***

"You are such a good servant," she said, her long, sharp fingernails scratching at the soft skin at the base of my skull. "You are such a good boy."

I lived to please her, for a while. I did as I was bid. Even when I shouldn't, I did. I breathed in the scent of her cunt and it was glorious. I licked at the hot walls of her and I felt her juices slide over my chops. She would shudder under my tongue and I would find peace in her sighs. Angels don't know how to have fun. Angels don't know pleasure, because they don't know pain. 

Lilith held me in place and I worshipped her as only the profane could. I rubbed my nose to her clit until she held me still and rode my face. I tongued deep into her depths as she issued orders to someone else. I loved her. I loved her and it was foolish, but it was the love of the hostage for the hostage-taker. It was the love of the person released from a cage and shown the light but held on a leash, the same as any other. I loved her with all I knew and was.

It took a long time for me to feel anything else.

***

Weeks dragged into months. I gave them the odd name. I drew things that do not bear repeating with their ridiculous wax-crayon sticks. I met one of the all time greats (sue me. I like musicals and I'm occasionally a friend of Dorothy). 

Things grew... thin.

Even my stories were tiring me. There is only so many times you can imagine a Winchester doing unspeakable things to you. Only so many times you can try to recall with clarity the taste and feel of Craig sliding down your throat. Even layering my dream world over the real one and letting Dean's head explode onto the walls in the middle of a conversation became dull. My inner world which had been so vibrant and interesting grew... flat.

I started to wonder if some of the conversations we'd had were real. Either they were messing with my head by feigning ignorance (and if so, they were smart. Very smart) or else I was so utterly bored that I began to run through my own interrogation sequences and do them right so that it sped things up and kept me from remembering. Kept me from things I no longer wanted to dwell on.

_Humanity: young and carefree. A simpler time. No questions. Scotland in the rain. A flash of angel-wing. A demon's caring whiplash to my back. Blood that was not my own. A woman who never loved me. A woman who I thought did. A child. Mine or not? I couldn't tell. Was that me? Was he me? Who was I?_

If I got out of here alive... what would I find? Abaddon was surely in control by now, and she'd made it clear she had no interest in a marriage made in Hell. Anyone dumb enough to be loyal would be dead. I had no place left in Hell - not one I could take without a violent and bloody civil war, and I'm made for loving, not fighting - and I was tired. So tired. 

Tired of the occasional kiss of silver doused in holy water. Tired of the questions that were the same day in, day out. Tired of remembering what was real and what was not.

Tired of the _filth_. I didn't need to eat, sleep or drink. I did, however, stink. I know at one point I asked them to clean the blood at least from my suit and tie, called them all the names under the sun and promised six names if they'd end man's inhumanity to sartorial pride.

I did not expect Castiel to show up the next day with a bucket of warm water and a cloth. 

Strangely, he had not featured in my fantasies so far. Memories, yes. Fantasies, no.

I don't know why.

I still hated him for what he'd done. He'd got one over on me, in a way...

In a way no one had in a very long time.

Here he was, though, real or not with no heavenly aura of power surrounding him.

He knelt at my feet and pulled off my shoes.

"What, exactly, are you doing here?"

"Dean decided I could come back," Cas explained like it made perfect sense to me. Either my subconscious was now developing a way to put back story in to make things seem more real, or it had finally flipped and was talking nonsense, or a de-winged angel of the Lord was really here and trying to wash my feet.

"My feet are fine," I snapped. "Can't you see my lovely suit needs attention?"

"Oh. I'm sorry. This... this was what they used to do. I haven't really observed anything else, other than showers."

"Well a shower wouldn't go amiss. You could even drop the soap."

"I am not allowed to unchain you, Crowley. I will do what I can with this."

Cas got to his feet and started to ease my collar from under the heavy metal one around my neck. His fingers were careful and considerate, much like Sam's had been in my dream world. I sighed and let him strip me. 

He got as far as pushing the shirt and jacket down to my wrists before he realised his error.

"Oh."

"You could untie one hand at a time to take it off for laundering?" I suggested.

"I don't think Dean would be pleased."

"Do you do everything Dean asks? Cas... is he really better than God?"

The once-angel winced. "It's not like that, Crowley. And I can't trust you."

"Apparently I can't trust you, either, Cas, and you're - you _were_ an angel of the Lord."

He took the warm cloth and started to clean the worst of the mess from my temple, ignoring my baiting words. I could see it hurt him, though, because his eyes tightened around the corners and his mouth set in a thin, sharp line. Sharp enough to cut, I thought. 

He worked in silence and I just enjoyed the sensations, trying to focus on the heat bleeding out the tension and opening my pores and cleaning the stench from my skin. I shut my eyes and let him work. I tried to imagine things like one of my hellhounds scratching lines of pain from shoulder blade down to ass, or those cautious hands reaching into my trousers to give me some relief... but I couldn't. I don't know why. I couldn't.

I was growing weary. 

I was forgetting to fight. To want. To dream.

"Why are you crying, Crowley?"

"Don't be ridiculous. The King of Hell doesn't cry."

"Are you?"

"Of course I am."

"You don't look it to me."

I glared at him, but I had to concede the point. I was half-undressed, trussed, vaguely damp from his attempts to clean me... and I'd been in here with mostly my own demons for company for God alone knew how long.

Oh, how the mighty had fallen.

I wasn't even a punkass crossroad demon, now. To be that, I would have needed the power to grant wishes. In here, I couldn't even dry-clean a damned shirt.

"Appearances can be deceiving, darling."

Cas continued to clean me until my face and chest were fixed. Then he put the cloth back in the bucket and went for one of my wrists.

I didn't expect him to release it, but he did. When he did, I was too much in shock to do anything but let him pull the cuffs free. He put my hand onto my knee and went to my other wrist, repeating it. He bundled up my clothes and went to put them in a laundry bag.

My eyes narrowed. "I'm not going to give you any names, you know."

"I don't want any," Cas told me.

"Well, what did Dean send you for?"

"He didn't send me, Crowley. I came because I wanted to."

Free hands gave me very little, to be told, but the ability to stretch a little and preen uncomfortably was nice. 

"Wait here. What size are you?"

"Nothing you'll find upstairs, Cas."

He tilted his head at me in that way he always used to, sizing me up. I squirmed under the scrutiny and then he left.

When he came back he had an over-grown plaid shirt in his hands. "This will fit you, while your clothes clean. Then you will not be cold."

"I'm not wearing _that_ ," I spat.

Me? In plaid? Can you imagine anything more disgusting?

"No one else will see you."

"I don't care. _I will_."

"Do you want me to go?" Cas asked, his hands wringing at the shirt he must have stolen from Sam for me. I wondered what Sam would think if he knew Cas had been through his clothes to cover my modesty.

"I'm not wearing plaid," I repeated.

I couldn't quite tell him to go.

I couldn't quite face it if he did.

"Okay. But listen if you can hear the washing machine, so I can bring you your things back."

"You put them in--" I had to bite my tongue. 

How would an angel of the Lord know any better about dry cleaning? Fine.

"I will buy you new clothes," he said, his expression pained. 

"It's fine. I'll just get some new ones when I get out of here."

"As you wish."

Cas sat down, cross-legged, on the floor before me. He looked patiently up at me.

That wasn't going to break me, either.

I should have spoken, but I didn't. We sat in silence until the spin and dry cycles were over and then he went to retrieve my (now ruined) clothes. When he finished putting them back on I held my wrists out and allowed him to recuff me.

***

I want to tell you another story. I want to tell you, because you are the only one who listens. You are the only one listening to my words. I speak in the darkness, the words aloud and in my head both at once. I think. I am not sure. I am not sure who I am, any more. I am not sure what I want, any more. So many pasts, so many truths, so many hurts.

Where do I start? Where do I stop? Where is the middle? What is the point? What is the moral? Who is speaking? Who listens?

***

Angels fall all the time. All that bull about shooting-stars aside. They do. They fall and often they don't even know they've done it. 

It is hard to take Heaven seriously when it's filled with hypocrites and murderers. Hard to listen to a damn thing any one of them says.

***

Trust me, says Naomi, as she waves a hand and starts a plague.

Trust me, says Lilith as she waves a hand and reaps a hundred souls.

Trust me, Castiel never says, as he fools you that angels are creatures of their word and to be believed. 

Why was he the mistake I made? I saw through both my lovers, and I should have been blinded by them. I saw the dirty, dark interior. I revelled in it.

I never saw the betrayal coming from him, and all he was was a business partner. A colleague. A stiff. A means to an end.

It hurt.

I thought I left pain behind me, when I finally emerged from Hell a new demon. When I shed the foolish naivety and innocence, when I embraced all hurts as just fuel. Stimulus, of another kind. You can't hurt a masochist. You can't rape the willing. You can't...

_...you can._

***

In the beginning there was nothing - or so I am told - and that wasn't enough. God in his infinite wisdom created things. He created Tuesdays and giraffes. He created microbes and the colour purple. He created man and woman. He created angels... and the possibility of demons.

Demons created themselves.

***

The next few times it was Sam or Dean. I barely spoke. They had nothing I wanted. They could offer nothing to me. The small shreds of physical comfort were no longer appealing to me. The starch in my shirt-collar was nothing, and the thought of pain made me feel neither attraction nor repulsion.

I no longer cared about anything. The stories in my head were all spent. I was...

I was empty.

Nothing they could offer me would entice me. Instead of breaking me open, they had succeeded only in letting me crumble in on myself. There was no joy. There was no pain. There was no hope. There was nothing.

I was nothing.

They had won, but they had also lost. They didn't know that in order to break someone, to win them over... you must give them something in return. To me they had given nothing. 

Perhaps Dean was not quite the pupil Alastair had thought him.

I saw the worry on Sam's face - then Dean's - but even upsetting them caused me no joy. I was empty. I was ready to die, at last. I had nothing left to live for. Nothing.

They let Kevin hit me, but I barely batted an eyelash. Dean called me all the names under the sun and I didn't even look up. Sam tempted me with DVDs or a walk around the bunker, but I didn't want another story. Another tale of false hope and longing. Of good and bad. Of love and hate.

I gave them their list. It meant nothing to me, any more. None of my people had come to save me - and who would? - I was yet another deposed King. I loved none of them, not any more. And none of them loved me. I had no interest in going back. I had no urge to rule. Why had I to begin with? I could no longer remember. It no longer felt like me, but I was forgetting what 'me' meant.

They took the list and went away, and I wondered how long before they would finally kill me and let me take my rest in the earth as I should have done so many moons ago. I listened to the sounds of the bunker and I imagined the conversations. Should they see if I knew anything else? What harm was there in keeping me? I was just a demon, not a human. I was a monster and it was fine to cage me and torture me and use me, because I had done much worse. I had no soul. It was no sin. Why not keep me longer? Was I even any use?

Even that got boring, and I let the voices die down to echoes and then to nothing.

"I'm glad they sent you," I told the man who had been an angel, when he finally came in to see me.

"Why?"

"Humans don't... they don't understand. You and me... you and me we've seen more than they have."

"They have seen more than most humans, Crowley. They are not so different from you or I."

True, that. They'd seen Heaven, Hell, Purgatory... more places than I had...

"Will you make it quick?" I asked, meeting his eyes. There was compassion in there that I did not want to see. I wanted him to feel as dead as I did. I didn't want to go out making anyone feel anything: sorrow, regret, compassion, closure, peace. I just wanted it to be a business transaction and nothing more.

"I am not here to kill you, Crowley."

"Then send the man who is, Cas. I'm dead if you set me out into the world at large and they will make it considerably more painful than you lot would. I'm through, Cas. I'm done. Just get it bloody over with."

Cas came over, and my words were hurting him. I could see that. I could see the way his eyes brimmed and didn't give. I could have reached out and touched the start of those tears, if my hands were only free.

"I do not wish you to suffer," Cas went on. "You have suffered enough." His hand touched my cheek and it burned.

It burned. My own eyes hurt.

"Then put me out of my misery," I begged. "I am nothing, Cas. Nothing. I am King of Nowhere and Nothing. I am entirely without purpose. I've just sold my whole people down the river for nothing other than the chance to finally get some peace. Why won't you let me go?"

"I hurt you." Cas was close, now. He sat on my knee, and I had to fight not to push him off. "When I... when I betrayed you. I betrayed everyone, then. I hurt Sam and Dean, too. But they forgive me, and I want you to, too."

"Really? I'm asking you to kill me and you're begging for my forgiveness?"

Cas nodded. He put his head on my shoulder.

"What if I lied and said I did?"

"I would know you were lying." The words were so simple, but he said them in the full self-knowledge that this was the truth.

"Why does it even matter to you? I'm a demon. We don't do forgiveness. If you want to eternally self-flagellate using my name then knock yourself out."

His hand tightened around my waist. 

"I didn't expect I could hurt you," he explained. "When I did it. I thought you were just a demon. I didn't know... I didn't know you still could feel pain."

"I can't," I lied. "You didn't hurt me."

"You're lying," he said. "I saw it."

"So what?"

"I didn't want to."

"Well, you must have. Or you wouldn't have done it."

"I did... but now I wish I didn't." He burrowed against my neck, clingy. Of all the people to come to for absolution, I was the most stupid choice in the universe.

"It doesn't matter. One way or another, my crimes were always going to catch up with me," I told him. "I survived that. I've survived worse."

"I want to make it up to you," he said.

My eyes narrowed. "How?"

"Sam said... Sam said it was going to work."

My blood ran cold. "No."

The man on my lap went stiff. "I would only do it if you wanted me to, Crowley. I... I am not about to take your last decision away from you."

"Get off me."

Cas did, sadly, and the hurt all over his beautiful face nearly broke me all over again.

"Get out. GET. OUT."

Cas looked like I'd raped his puppy or something, arms coming up in front of his chest defensively. "Please just consider it, Crowley. I know... I know you did bad things, but so have I. I want to give you a second chance. Please don't just end it all. Please think about it."

"GET. OUT." I roared at the top of my voice and glared at the angel long after he was gone.

And when he was gone... I wept.

***

Falling doesn't hurt as much as you think it will. An angel falling to Hell burns with the glorious purpose of freedom. A human falling to Hell screams at first, but before long he is making others scream instead. Falling doesn't hurt. Landing doesn't hurt.

Feeling hurts.

I have loved and lost. I have loved and been ignored. I have loved and been betrayed. I have loved.

I wanted to die. I wanted to escape. I wanted no more of this world. I had no place, no purpose, no goal. I had nothing.

...nothing bar someone who had once done me grievous pain who wanted to atone for his sins. Nothing bar the possibility of redemption at last. And what then? If he cured me, what then? Would I vanish into ash? Would my soul leave this body I had stolen? Would I go back to Hell? I couldn't imagine I would go to Heaven. Purgatory, then? Or would I have one last shot at it? One last chance to fuck up or fix it? What did I have to lose?

Being evil had given me plenty, but it had never given me peace. I had always been striving for more. More power. More privilege. More everything. And never had anything I got won me peace of mind.

Everything I took just increased my hunger. I was in Tartarus, and instead of sating my appetite, every bite I took increased it a hundred-fold. All those lies I had told myself to get by were just that: lies.

I screamed myself hoarse in anger and pain. I had enough! Enough. It hurt too much and I was tired of it. I was tired of it all. At least if they killed me one more time I would be free. Free at last. Free to the abyss I so honestly deserved.

But then came the fear. I had existed for so long, that I was not sure how ready I was for that to stop. I had thought I had no option, no choice, no chance. No hope.

And Castiel had offered me one last lifeline. One last rope. To hang from, or tie about me and hope to be pulled free.

All it took would be my forgiveness. That was the only price he seemed to demand. My forgiveness and my willingness to let him try to cure me.

To what end, I didn't know. Maybe Sam knew what would come next, or maybe only God would.

I was alone with my thoughts again.

***

It wasn't Cas who came, next. Surprisingly it was Sam.

I could see the glow around his shoulders and head had gone. Whatever it was, it was no more. I wonder if he even knew it had been there to begin with.

"Cas told me what he asked you," Sam said, without preamble. "He says he can't kill you, even if you want him to. If you want that then it's gonna have to be me, Dean, or you do it yourself."

"I get the choice?"

Sam nodded.

"Well that is very nice of you."

"You don't have to do it, Crowley. You don't have to. We don't even need to... we can set up some kind of panic room for you, or..."

"Would you be happy living in one?"

He shook his head.

"Neither would I."

Silence.

"Well, then." I gestured with what little freedom my chains allowed me.

Sam sighed. "I saw... I saw you, Crowley. I saw under your skin. I know... I know. Okay? And I know you can be saved. Cas wants to do it for you. Not because he thinks you'll forgive him, but because he's hurt that he hurt you. Crazy, isn't it? That someone would feel bad about betraying the devil?"

"Then he's an idiot."

"Maybe so. But for whatever reason, Crowley, he wants to make it up to you. And maybe you could get some peace. Maybe you could have a fresh start. I mean - what have you go to lose?"

"Everything?"

Sam waved an arm around at my prison cell. It was not a big 'everything'. But that was not the point. The point was everything _inside_ me.

The point was my pride, and the stories I had constructed to stand in my stead. It no longer fit the narrative, and my stories needed to stop.

"I'll come back tomorrow. I'll ask you again. Whatever you want, I'll honour the decision. But I want you to seriously consider it, Crowley. Not many people get a second chance, but maybe the world would be less shitty if they did."

And Sam left me.

On my own.

Again. 

One last time.

***

Two mice fall into a vat of cream. One mouse tries desperately to climb out, but the walls are slick and smooth. He falls back, over and over. He grows tired and he stops swimming and he sinks to the bottom and he dies.

Sad, isn't it?

The second mouse does not give up. He swims and he swims and he swims. His poor little paws ache from all the exertion, and his fur is soaked with cream. It clings to his whiskers and it threatens to pull him under.

Does he stop swimming, does he stop striving, does he stop caring?

If you swim for long enough, the cream turns to butter and you can drag yourself from the pit.

***

When Sam came back, he didn't say a word. He stood in the doorway and he looked at me. Our eyes held one another and understanding passed between us. I didn't need to say yes. I didn't even need to nod. For all I hated it, he had seen parts of me that no one else had. Sam understood me in a way Dean never would. Sam understood me in a way _Lilith_ never had.

Lilith may have warped me to her hand, but Sam had seen the wood underneath the varnish.

There was the slightest of smiles on his lips when he left.

Because I hadn't said anything, I could still lie to myself that I hadn't agreed to it.

But I had.

***

All stories are about rises and falls. Goldilocks and the broken chair. Humpty Dumpty and his wall. Achilles and his wrath. Adam and Eve. Without the motion, there is no story.

I had been gloried on high, and I had been cast down as low as it was possible to go.

There was no further down from here.

I was at the end of the line.

***

He came in with a new shirt, jacket, tie, trousers, socks, shoes... everything. Literally everything. I looked at Castiel with confusion. 

"I said I would buy you a replacement," he said. "I had to use Dean's money but he said it was okay. He said I was allowed to use his money for things. I don't have a job."

I don't... Cas. Oh Cas. Even now he was as strange and unworldly as he had ever been.

"Well, that's very nice of you," I told him. "But I can hardly dress myself right now."

"Yes you can." He had the key to my chains in his left hand. 

I sat patiently and lifted my head to allow him to unfasten them all. I was struck by possibilities, again. Things I could do. No longer was my story one of passive acceptance, but one of maybes. I could strangle him, when he undid my manacles. I could strike him. I could kill him here and provoke the Winchesters into one last act of vengeance on me. Or I could use him as a bargaining chip and make them break the demon-trap below me that kept me penned inside. So many things. So many, many things.

Instead I let him unchain me and stand back. He put the clothes in my lap and then he turned to look at the wall.

"Really, angel? Am I that horrifying that you have to look away?"

"No," Cas answered. "I wanted to give you your privacy."

Ever the literal answer, with him.

I stripped because I could, and although my body hadn't needed exercise it still felt like it wasn't quite my own, from being still so long. I took off the clothes of my confinement and put on the replacements. They were not quite as fine, but they were fresh and a change, and I wasn't going to look a gift suit in the mouth.

When I was done, I clicked my heels together and sat back down in the throne, waiting to be rebound into place.

Instead Cas took my old clothes away and put them to one side. 

"Well. Are you here to kill or cure me?"

"Which do you want?"

"What I really want you can't give me, Cas."

"I suppose that is true," he agreed. "But I can give you a chance at happiness, maybe?"

"Why does it even matter to you?"

My words stung him, because his cheeks went red and his eyes went down.

"It matters because... it matters."

This was no answer. No answer at all. 

"Do you want me to leave?" he asked. "Would you rather that Sam or Dean...?"

"No." I shrugged and rolled my shoulders until they popped. "It's you or nothing, Cas."

Again, that flush. I wondered what it meant. I wondered why he cared. And he did care. More even than Sam, with his well-meaning words and that ever-patient compassion. More even than...

No. I do not want to think about _her_.

"It will take seven hours to do this," Cas told me. "I will stay with you, unless you wish me to leave."

"Sticks and stones, Cas. Whatever floats your boat."

"Do you wish to say anything before we begin?"

"Hmmm... nope. Not a thing."

"Okay." 

Cas went to fetch the syringe. He'd plunged it in my neck before I realised he'd not rechained me to the chair. When it was done he pressed against the puncture wound with his thumb. He needn't have bothered, and I swallowed under it.

"Tickles," I explained. "Are you going to kiss it better?"

"No."

He put the hypodermic onto a table and he sat cross-legged at my feet.

I sighed and stared at the ceiling.

To begin with I didn't feel a thing.

***

The next five times he said nothing. Nothing at all. I was beginning to think I was hallucinating the whole experience, because it was the strangest thing I ever remembered. I thought - at first - that he was just injecting something else into me, or that it wasn't working, or that something was just plain wrong.

But then it started to feel weird. The sixth shot made me feel light-headed and woozy, and I had to hold onto the chair so as not to fall out sideways. Everything was slightly... sparkly and bright. My chest sort of... pounded? Yes. Pounded. My heart was hammering against my ribcage and I almost felt like I could _smell_ feelings.

"Are you okay?" Cas asked, a hand on my shoulder and those eyes staring into mine.

"Fine, ducky. Just fine."

"You started to laugh."

"It's funny, no?"

He didn't laugh. He didn't smile. I frowned at him, sadly.

"Are you feeling happy?" he asked.

"No, I'm feeling fucking stoned, Cas. Off my gourd. Wasted. Intoxicated. Inebriated. Under the influence."

"I have not consumed any intoxicants in a week," Cas told me.

"Haha. Probably just all your filthy morals, then."

Cas nodded. He didn't see the joke.

He sat down at my feet and I wondered why he hadn't bought a chair in.

"I don't find the floor uncomfortable," he told me. And then I realised I'd been thinking aloud.

"You have been for some time."

Shit.

"Do not worry," he reassured me. "I will keep your secrets safe. What is it they say - to the grave?"

"Well that's reassuring."

"Good. I am glad."

I was being sarcastic.

"As was I."

***

I don't know what I said, because the words poured out of me like some feverish flood. I just know I said a lot of things, and although I was horrified by them, I couldn't stop it. Words like a torrent. Years of frustration and pain. I said it all and I probably meant at least half of it. Cas listened and said soothing things and when he injected me for the seventh time, I yelped and he pulled my head against his chest and he held me as I cried.

I didn't cry.

Crowley doesn't cry.

He held me as I cried and then he let me go when the tension uncurled enough in me. He sat back down on the floor and he ran a hand along my calf. It felt good. It felt good to be touched again. It wasn't even sexual, it was just... closeness. Affection. Kindness. 

I slid from the chair to the floor and I sat cross-legged, too. He was right. It was more comfortable than I expected. I don't know why I thought it would hurt, but perhaps it was memories of nights spent on my knees that told me this would be bad.

He put a hand on my head and I don't... I don't know how but suddenly I was lying on my back with my head in his lap and his fingers on my scalp. He stroked me carefully and I had to keep my eyes shut so I didn't see the look in his. 

I stopped talking. I stopped telling him my stories. I think I told every last one. Every last lie and every last half-truth and every single truth, too, in there somewhere with the confusion. I laid it all out for him and then I was bare to his judgement.

And then he spoke to me.

He told me of the days in Heaven when he had been sure of himself. He told me of his task, his sacred duty. He told me how he pulled Dean free from Hell's grasp, and it made me smile to hear him describe the old Hell. He told me about the orders he'd questioned. He told me about the fear and doubt. He told me about the indecision and the good intentions and how he'd only wanted to do the right thing. Always the right thing. But never quite sure what it was. He told me how he'd been afraid to work with me, because of the taint of Hell. He told me how he'd been ashamed to admit things, but still unable to say no. He told me how he'd betrayed me and how he'd been filled with such power that he'd seen forever. He told me what came next. 

I listened because I knew he needed me to. He needed to explain himself. He needed to apologise. He needed me to know why he'd done it, and how he saw now he was wrong. Wrong to work with me, yes, but wrong for all sorts of other reasons too. 

He told me about Purgatory, and how he thought he belonged there for trying to break into it with me. He told me how he came loose. He told me stories of things I had glimpsed at but not seen. He told me how he'd trusted an angel to find him faithless, and I laughed at that.

"What's funny?"

"That both of us should trust an angel, when we both know Lucifer fell."

He winced.

"So we should never trust anyone?"

"I didn't say that... but no one has ever given me a reason to believe in them."

"I suppose not."

His hands went still. As his story ended, so did the time. It was now. It was now when we would see.

He moved to get the last shot of his blood, but I grabbed his hand and stopped him.

Cas stared at me in confusion. "You... you don't want this?"

"I do," I said, and I meant it. "But before you do that, I have to tell you something."

He thought about this, then he nodded.

"I..." I couldn't say it. I couldn't. My eyes closed. My body was weak and thrumming with the drugged, honest blood. I wasn't myself, but it was the last time perhaps I would ever be this person I was right now. "I forgive you, Castiel."

"Thank you," he said, and he plunged the last vial into me. I held onto his arm and bit my lip as he started to say the words that would forever change me, one way or another. It hurt. It hurt so badly. Where his fingers touched me, light blazed. I could see Hell and I could see Heaven and I could see everything in between. I could remember the smell of the damned and I could hear the peace of the blessed. I swore and I bucked and he held me down, held me in place as he finished the words to the ritual and dragged the tar from what lingering, bruised smoke of a soul was left of the man I had long ago been.

And then everything went _white_.

***

When I woke up, I was confused. Everything was too bright and it hurt my eyes. The world was violent and unpleasant. I tried to hide from it, but there was no escape. I groaned and tried to roll over and was surprised when my arm hit bed.

My eyes opened too fast and I took in everything at once.

Bed. Room. Alive. 

I wriggled, experimentally, trying to find the ends of me. No spells holding me down that I could sense. Although... I couldn't sense anywhere near as much as I should have been able to.

I sat up with a start and was surprised to find my head ached. And my toes were slightly cold. And I needed to drink a gallon of water. 

"Well, look who's back," Dean said, sounding amused. He was sitting slouched in an armchair at the other end of the room, messing about on a laptop. "Welcome back to the land of the living, Sleeping Beauty."

"How long was I out?" I asked, and my voice barely worked. 

Dean nodded at the bedside table and I gratefully took the water and gulped it down almost in one.

"Couple days. Ritual did a number on you."

My hands went up to my face and slapped it. It felt familiar. It felt like the me I'd been for some time now.

"Yeah, we figure you're stuck with that ugly mug, but you seemed to like it, so..."

"I'm... human?"

"As far as we can tell. You don't respond to exorcism, iron, holy water, salt, silver or anything else we threw at you."

I nodded. No more powers. Okay. That was going to be strange. Just to be sure, I tried to wish very hard and click my fingers.

Nope. Nothing.

"No juju, remember?"

"I was just checking," I drawled.

I looked about the room. It was simple enough, and I was amused to see the suit that Cas had bought for me - with Dean's money - was hanging smartly on a hanger in front of the wardrobe. 

"So what now, squirrel? Do you send me out into the big bad world for the next demon to pick up and corrupt? Or is there a retirement home somewhere for ex-Kings of Hell?"

"Well, see, there's the thing. I don't trust you as far as I can throw you, Crowley. But it would hardly be sportsmanlike to just kick you out the door."

"I see. So we're in a bit of a situation, here?"

"One there's a solution been proposed to."

Solutions. I liked the sound of solutions.

"For whatever dumbshit reason, Cas feels responsible for you. Stupidest thing, I know. But apparently you being de-clawed makes him nostalgic for Heaven and he thinks you deserve a second chance."

"So... he's okay?"

"He's fine," Dean went on. "He was a bit tired after the thing, but nothing major." 

There was more Dean wasn't saying, but I didn't feel it polite to pry.

"So. I got me Sam. And Cas... well. Cas doesn't have a Sam. And Sam thought maybe you and Cas could work together. You know. War makes strange friends and that."

"Bedfellows," I corrected him.

"Friends," Dean insisted. "So if you want to work with him, then the offer is there."

Work with him? I assumed Dean meant hunting. Why would I hunt, in this body? It was weak and frail. I hadn't even liked violence when I was capable of it. 

But... what else could I do?

"What does Cas have to say on the matter?"

"Cas thinks... Cas thinks it would be a good thing for you both. And he says if he trusts anyone who isn't me or Sam, then it's you. I say he's the biggest fool the world has ever seen, but you gotta let them grow up sometime."

"Right."

"But I'm warning you," Dean's voice got low and dangerous. "You pull any shit on him? Any? I mean anything whatsoever? You're going to wish I came in and killed you back when you were a demon. I mean it."

"Yes, I know, I know. The big Winchester Family Talk. I get it, Dean. I do."

"You better."

He closed his laptop and got up.

"You rest, now. Wander around. Make breakfast. Take a shower, maybe..." and from the way his nose wrinkled I supposed I needed to again. "And think about it."

"Alright."

Dean looked like he wanted to warn me about something else, or threaten me, or... I don't know. But then he shrugged and he walked off.

And he left me alone.

But this time it wasn't to darkness. This time there was light in the room. Light, water, a clean pressed suit. 

I slid out of the bed and my bare feet on the floorboards made me gasp.

There was so much to remember. So much to relearn.

First, though, I would shower and dress. Then I could go in search of Castiel and see what he wanted to do with me.

No one else understood me like he did.

I like to think perhaps he says the same of me.

It was time for another story. 

Once upon a time, two men met in the dark.

 _Trust me_ , said Castiel at last.

And I did.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The First of One Thousand and One Nights](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1054782) by [Davechicken](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Davechicken/pseuds/Davechicken)




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